Invisible Children - the plight of the Acholi people of Northern Uganda

Columbus Travel Blog

We got together to prepare for Displace ME. Spray paint, white t-shirts, stencil materials and cardboard boxes - arts & crafts time! We downloaded templates for the stencils from the IC website and spent a couple of hours making the shirts, etc.

Okay, let me backtrack. Invisible Children is a documentary about the Acholi of Northern Uganda, who have been caught in the middle of a war for the last 20 years. The film was made by three students from southern California. [check out the website: http://www.invisiblechildren.com/home.php] They stumbled upon children who travel during the day in order to sleep in larger cities where they will be marginally safer from being abducted by the rebel army and forced to fight.

Standing together for a good cause.

These children go without schooling or adult supervision, and are packed wall-to-wall on the floors of hospitals and bus terminals at night.

Displace ME was an event meant to raise awareness about another aspect of Acholi life: millions of people were given 48 hours to gather what they could carry and march to camps supposedly for protection by the government. These camps were meant to be a temporary solution, and lack potable water, schools, medical care or any means for the people to provide for themselves. This temporary solution was enacted by the Ugandan government TEN YEARS AGO. The Invisible Children organization organized Displace ME in 15 U.S. cities and filmed at each location, with the intent of making a presentation for the U.S. government. The idea is to convince our government to pressure the Ugandan government into taking better care of the Acholi, ending the war as quickly as possible, and allowing the Acholi to return to their homes.